Nine Times the Doctor Met Jack
by Captain LeBubbles
Summary: The Doctor met Jack eight times before they met, and once much, much later.
1. Chapter 1

**When the Doctor Met Jack**

**By: The Bubbles**

**Summary: As it turns out, that night in London was **_**not**_** the first encounter between Jack and the Doctor… although to be fair they didn't actually meet here, either.**

**A/N- This is what happens when Bubbles goes to bed right after Torchwood goes off… just a little something I thought of a while back.**

**(o.o.o)**

Jack walked into the room, humming contentedly to himself. It had been a good day for him, of course, _any_ day he got to beat up alien gerbils, retrieve what he was almost _certain_ was a lost bit of technology from the Doctor's sonic box, and get a call from Martha just to chat was a good day in his book.

So when he walked in on Gwen and Ianto staring intently at a computer screen, neither of them moving or speaking or even acknowledging his presence- _his_ presence!- he knew that somewhere, the powers-that-be were laughing at him.

"Okay, so what's up?"

They didn't answer for several minutes. Then, Ianto turned to stare in bewilderment.

"The lift has been blocked."

Jack tried not to get his hopes up at this, he tried to stop his heart racing at the idea that maybe, _just maybe_, the powers-that-be had decided to let something else go right on this, this wonderfully perfect day.

But when he looked at the screen, what should he see but the TARDIS? His heart skipped about three beats and jumped up into his throat, and then started beating far faster than could be considered healthy. In fact, he was quite certain that, had he been able to die, he would have. And wouldn't that have been inconvenient?

After staring at the blue box for hours, or maybe seconds, he turned and took off, Ianto's and Gwen's shouts rang in his ears, but he neither understood nor answered them. He only stopped when he reached the door to the little blue wooden box, sitting innocently on that same slab of pavement, taking in the energy of the rift so that she could refuel.

It wasn't the same TARDIS. He could tell by looking, now that he was closer. It _would_ be the same, someday many centuries later- or sooner, or maybe even next week- but at the moment, she was colder, newer, not quite the same as he remembered.

Also, there was a very strange man standing in the doorway, who was most certainly _not_ the Doctor, but at the same time Jack could tell that this man could be none other than the Doctor, for he had that air about him that suggested he was all at once warm, and cold, and mad, and brilliant.

"Wrong one again, then," he said quietly, but the odd man who was not and at the same was the Doctor heard him.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

He ran a hand through the massive curls on his head, and gave Jack a curious look, as if he could tell that everything about the man was just _wrong_.

"Not yet, but you will. I'm, uh," he paused. It wouldn't do to give his name, unless it screwed up the time stream. "Captain John Hart," he finally said. "I'm from the Time Agency. We met- will meet- in your future."

The Doctor seemed to accept that this and thankfully didn't press the matter further. As he pondered this, he spotted something over Jack's shoulder and peered curiously. Jack turned to look as well.

It was Gwen and Ianto, standing in the door of the tourist's center and staring at the man in the little blue box. Jack sighed. He had forgotten about them.

"I've gotta go, Doctor," he said. "Looks like you're done fueling up anyway." He turned to walk away, and then turned back. "Just one more thing."

He grabbed him and kissed him, same as he had done the last few times they said goodbye. Unfortunately, for Jack, anyway, he hadn't done much before the Doctor shoved him away.

Jack laughed cheekily and turned to stroll away, whistling. The Doctor glared in his direction long after he had gone back inside, wondering what in the world had possessed his future self to take him along with him.

Once back in the hub, Ianto and Gwen pulled up chairs to stare at him.

"_Well_," Gwen finally asked. "Was _that_ the famous Doctor?"

"Oh, that was the Doctor all right," he said happily, the memory of the kiss still lingering, " but it wasn't _my_ Doctor."

**(o.o.o)**

**A/N- This could also be considered a companion piece to my stories "Not MY Doctor" and "Things to Make Sonic (And Why You Shouldn't)." If this one is a success, I may do one with some other previous Doctors, because really, Jack **_**did**_** say that he waited around for the **_**right**_** version of him to come along. **

**I would also like to point out that this takes place sometime in the aftermath of Torchwood, season three, so Jack already knows Ten. That's why Tosh and Owen aren't there.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Nine Times the Doctor Met Jack**

**By: The Bubbles**

**Summary: A visit to Cardiff results in tragedy for young!Doctor.**

**A/N- And just like that, this story gets serious. I think it's because I'm working on Tocxi's b-day story right now too, and that's so silly that I have to kind of counterbalance the silliness with something serious. Not all of the chapters will be this serious, by the way. **

**(o.o.o)**

He was in the tourist's center talking to Ianto when the boy ran in. Jack judged him to be about seven, maybe eight, with a shock of sandy blonde hair that fell into steely blue eyes currently wide with fear.

"You have to help me!" he cried. "It's my mum, she's been attacked by a Weevil!"

_He knows what a Weevil is._ Jack filed that information away for later and called for Owen, the only other team member available. Once Owen had grabbed his med kit, Jack indicated for the boy to lead the way.

It wasn't far. He took them to a nearby alleyway. A young woman lay on the ground, bleeding from several wounds, while a man, presumably the boy's father, was wrestling the Weevil to the ground- and not doing a bad job of it, Jack noted.

"Owen, take care of the victim," Jack ordered. He needn't have. Owen was already crouched over the woman's body, an ear pressed against her chest to check for breathing. Jack pulled out his gun. "Sir, you need to back off. I don't want to risk shooting you as well."

The man didn't even shift a little. "You're primitive weapons won't do you any good. You might as well poke it with a stick."

"And I supposed going at it completely unarmed is a better idea?"

"I'm not unarmed."

The Weevil bucked, in an attempt to dislodge it's attacker, and for the first time Jack realized that the man was not, in fact, wrestling with the Weevil but attempting to strangle it with a high-tech lasso. After several more attempts to dislodge the man, it succeeded, and he went sailing through the air. Jack caught him, and the two fought for balance for a moment before steadying themselves. Jack once more brought up his gun and fired once, twice, three times at the Weevil, catching it off-guard and severely weakening it.

At this point, before we go any further, we must back up and observe something that happened several minutes ago. When Jack, Owen, and the young boy had approached the scene, the boy had run into what appeared to be a port-o-john resting at the back of the alley. Jack saw this out of the corner of his eye, and though he was focused on the matter at hand, somewhere in the back of his mind he registered that where the toilet should have been was a console room. A very large console room, disproportionate to the port-o-john it was contained in.

Now, as the Weevil was reeling from the damage Jack's gun and the boy's father had inflicted, the boy ran out, carrying a cricket bat, which he used to hit the Weevil's head as hard as he could. The strain too much for it, and it fell to the ground, unconscious. The boy aimed a kick at its head.

"_That,_" he spat out angrily, "was for attacking my mum."

"Theta," his father said warningly, and shook his head warningly. The boy, Theta, looked angry but complied with his father's wishes and tossed the bat aside as if it disgusted him.

Jack turned to his medic. "Owen?"

Owen cast his med-kit aside and shook his head dejectedly. "Dead," he said. Grief layered over the anger in his voice. "I didn't get here in time to save her. I'm sorry."

"Mum!" Theta made as if to run to his mother's body, but his father grabbed him and redirected him to the port-o-john. "But Dad…"

"Go inside, Theta. I'll be in in a moment." Theta made no move to follow his father's directions. "I said go."

"I won't let you leave her."

"I won't leave her."

"Swear it."

He held up his hand. "Scout's honor."

Theta stared at his father for a long time before casting one last wistful glance at his mother's body and storming inside. Just before he slammed the door, Jack caught the words, "You're lying."

Once his son was no longer there, the man knelt over his wife's body and took the wedding band from around her finger.

"I promised I'd take care of her," he said, more to himself than to them. "I told her family I'd keep her safe. We've been all over time and space, we have, from Raxicoricofallipatorious to the Karzaxx Nebula, and nothing happened to her. Then I bring her to visit her family and she gets killed by a Weevil a few blocks away from home." He suddenly stood up and turned to Jack, as if he could no longer bear to look at the broken body that had only moments ago been a beautiful woman in the prime of her life. "Take her to her family, will you?" He gave him the directions. "She deserves that much, at least. Tell them I'm sorry. I tried."

He turned and walked into the port-o-john. Moments later it disappeared, never to be seen in Cardiff again.

**(o.o.o)**

He wasn't surprised when he knocked on the door at the address the older Time Lord had given him to learn that the girl was human; somehow he'd always suspected that the Doctor was more human than he let on.

He couldn't explain how he knew that the boy was the Doctor as a child. Maybe it was those eyes, because those eyes held all the wonder of the Universe. Or maybe it was the way he'd defiantly told his father that they couldn't leave without his mother. Or maybe it was because of the way the hand had shook and bubbled a little when the boy had come near it.

Or maybe it was the Sonic Hammer that was sticking out of his back pocket.

Yes; that had to be it.

They held the funeral a few days later. Jack attended, partly because he had been the bearer of bad news and partly out of respect to his friend.

When they arrived at the grave, a young man with sandy blonde hair was standing some ways away, leaning on a tree that Jack was fairly certain hadn't been there when he'd come by the day before. The man didn't seem to want to get involved in the proceedings, and when Jack returned afterwards he was gone- tree and all. He gave a forced laugh. Trust the man to wait that long to go to his mother's funeral and then not even stick around to see his family.

_/All this time,_ Jack thought. _All this time I've been living around the corner from his family and never knew it. No wonder he avoids Cardiff like the plague. I doubt I'd be able to go back either./_

**(o.o.o)**

**A/N- I know the ending is a bit off but I couldn't figure out what to do with it. Anyway, a bit of a look into why the Doctor would rather not go to Cardiff, especially since there seem to be so many shenanigans and goings on now. So there you are. And I'm already working on the next meeting, too.**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Third Time the Doctor Met Jack**

**By: The Bubbles**

**Summary: slightly-older-but-still-quite-young!Doctor and young!Master encounter Jack at the beginning of his missing two years.**

**A/N- This takes place just at the beginning of Jack's missing two years, so even if we do get to see what happened, I can just use the excuse that they went a little further back when they erased them just to be on the safe side.**

**Disclaimer- "I'm not gay! And I haven't had my teeth whitened!"**

**(o.o.o)**

Jack had been watching the two boys for quite some time now. He was sitting in a café, sipping coffee and waiting for someone to arrive, and they were sitting on a nearby park bench that he could see clearly from where he sat.

He didn't know the two boys, or anything about them; they could be classmates or brothers or even lovers for all he knew. There was nothing special about their appearance at all; they looked to be about fifteen or sixteen, one taller, with sandy blonde hair that half concealed steely blue eyes and long legs that stretched out before him, one arm rested at his side and the other stretched along the park bench behind his smaller companion; the other boy had dark brown hair and dark brown eyes and he looked nervous, his eyes darting around as he beat an odd rhythm into his knees with restless hands.

It was this rhythm that had captured Jack's attention, as it seemed to be sad and mad and beautiful all at once. He had never heard anything like it before in his life, and doubted that he ever would- something about it seemed like it belonged to that boy and that boy alone.

It was a still day, and there was no one else present, so when the smaller boy finally broke the silence, Jack was able to hear every word he said.

"Theta, he's not coming," he said, gazing at his taller companion.

The other one, Theta, glared at him.

"He'll be here," he reassured firmly. "Don't worry about it. He wouldn't just leave us."

As if to prove his point, he shifted into a much more relaxed pose, stretching his legs out to their full length and draping his arms carelessly on the back of the bench. He began looking around, properly taking in his surroundings for the first time. His eyes roamed the café and fell on Jack, and Jack suddenly sensed pure, intense hatred in those steely blue eyes, an intense hatred that was, interestingly enough, directed solely at him and not the world in general. Jack was forced to wonder what in the world he'd done to tick off this kid, and what, exactly, this kid had in mind for him.

The kid stared at him for several seconds, and Jack stared right back, and eventually the boy seemed to decide that Jack wasn't who he'd originally thought he was. He nudged his smaller companion and said something in a language Jack didn't quite recognize, and the other boy looked at him and replied the same language.

They lapsed back into silence after that, the boy Theta continuing his calm façade, making no effort to hide the fact that he was staring down the Time Agent, while the smaller, as-yet-unnamed boy continued to beat out that terrible rhythm.

After a while he broke the silence once again.

"What if he doesn't come?"

"He'll come."

"But what if he _doesn't_? What if-?"

"Kosceii!" Theta snapped, and the boy looked a bit taken aback by the outburst. Theta's face softened. "I'm sorry, Kosch. If he doesn't come for us we'll, we'll work something out. You know what Mum used to say, 'Worrying is a complete waste of energy."

For some reason, after saying this he fixed Jack with that same cold, angry stare before turning back to Koscheii. Kosheii had picked up his odd rhythm again, and after a while Theta put a hand on the one pounding to still it. Koscheii said something in the unrecognizable language, and Theta laughed, a bit too loudly and nervously.

After another long silence, Theta stood up and strode purposefully over to Jack. He slid into the seat opposite the Time Agent without waiting to be invited and stared at Jack through his shaggy bangs.

"Can I help you?" Jack asked, when it became apparent that the boy wasn't saying anything.

There was a pause, and the boy spoke.

"Have you ever been to Cardiff?"

"Once," he said lightly, a bit confused at the boy's question.

"Twenty-first century?"

"Nineteenth."

"Just the one time, then?"

Jack laughed at that. "Why would I go back? It's just Cardiff; nothing interesting ever happens there."

Theta stared at Jack until the Agent began to get a bit uncomfortable. He seemed to be trying to decide if he was telling the truth.

"If you ever do decide to go back, try to remember that guns are completely rubbish against Weevils."

Jack pondered this, and then decided to humor the kid. He nodded.

"I'll bear that in mind."

Theta studied him a moment longer. "It might be a while before you need to know."

What he meant by that was never explained, because before Jack could ask, a whirring, reality-warping sound filled the air and a 32nd century port-o-john materialized across the road.

Theta muttered about a rubbish sense of humour before getting up and striding toward the odd device. Kosceii joined him, and just before they went in, a man stepped out and looked around. He spotted Jack and a look of surprise crossed his face for the barest of seconds before he turned back to the two boys. He spoke to them, but they were now too far away for him to hear, and besides, he had a distinct feeling that they were using that unfamiliar language again.

Jack never found out who those two boys were, and he never found out what Theta meant to warn him about. Well, he _did_ find out, but he didn't realize it because not only was it much, much later, but at some point two years later he had it erased from his memory and thus didn't remember the two boys at all.

And both of them had died several times prior to that and so they didn't realize either.

Well, the Doctor did. He always remembers. But he wasn't about to bring it up.

**(o.o.o)**

**A/N- Ah, the next step to defeating writer's block! Anyway, I'm planning out the next chapter, which will feature technically-First-but-as-it's-quite-a-long-time-before-the-series-it-doesn't-count-as-such!Doctor and con-man-who's-really-just-trying-to-get-a-shag-from-a-very-attractive-blonde!Jack on the Titanic, with merciless ribbing on both sides.**

**Also, I've got an idea for a Torchwood/Top Gear crossover I want to do (actually I've got half of it already written, but it's the second half), but so far I don't have a title for it. So I need you lot to suggest a title based on the summary I'm about to give you:**

**In which Jack nearly runs over Jeremy twice, then tries to hit on all three of them at once, and there are mentions of Naked-Hide-And-Seek.**

**So suggest titles, people! I'm total rubbish with titles!**


End file.
